WARNING: There are drawings and paintings of female nudity in this post. Please do not read any further if this is an issue for you. Thank you.
I thought I would share some more photos from my adventures at The Art Students League:
The left side of the painting felt empty, so I sketched in a profile of the other model. I liked it, so I added some paint.
And here begins the 'battle of the nose" -- just can't seem to get it to work. Sigh.
And at the beginning of week four, we got two new models. This time I parked myself in front of the female model.
I am most proud of that horrible hand. Man, hands are so very hard to draw!
I moved onto painting after just two days of sketching.
Something about this painting just wasn't sitting well with me. So I changed it up:
And one dark and creepy image led to another:
Very raw and unfinished. And honestly I was very frustrated and stumped after a week. And then I realized that it was because the model simply wasn't inspiring me. I don't know if it's because she has her eyes closed or what, but I wasn't feeling the creative muse.
I did catch the model during her break time with a book and drew this sketch in about five minutes:
And it's my favorite of all the sketches and paintings of her. Nonetheless I left class feeling very frustrated. So I skipped about four days of classes. And then I decided to come back with a better attitude and "make it work."
The model was out sick the day I came back! So we had a substitute model and I did these two drawings (the first photo is the first drawing in-progress):
Almost looks like two different guys, doesn't it? I was experimenting with two different drawing styles. The first one is a bit more controlled, really working on getting the proportion right and a very strong resemblance. The second drawing was more intuitive and about the general feeling of the model.
I went back for one more day with the model-who-doesn't-inspire-me. I did a bunch of sketches and decided to try putting her hair up and adding some flowers to her hair.
Wasn't loving it, so I added her real hair, but kept the imaginary flowers.
The instructor came over to help me at this point and told me that I had more than enough paint on my canvas and needed to start toning the image so that the lines were softer and less harsh. He painted on my canvas and softened (and darkened) things:
And although I believe that my personal style is much more about hard lines and not soft gradations, I decided to try toning things. After all, as I'm always preaching, class is a great place to experiment and learn to love new things!
I'm not sure if it's done or not. And I'm not sure how I feel about it. But I can see the difference in the drawings I did of the substitute model the day before and this painting. Just another reminder about how important inspiration is.
Before I go, I thought I'd share this silly photo. One day, during class, I caught my reflection in the bathroom mirror...
Hmmmmm...charcoal on my forehead, nose, chin, and neck (and paint all over my hands). What a mess!
Thanks for stopping by!
